


If I Could Turn Back Time

by st_mick



Series: Niffler [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Torchwood
Genre: AU/Crossover, Ianto's a wizard, M/M, PTSD, Set after/Spoilers for Series 02 Episode 06 "Reset"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 06:52:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17761922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_mick/pseuds/st_mick
Summary: The members of Torchwood know about the wizarding world.  They even know that Ianto is a wizard.  But that doesn't mean four wizards can just apparate into the Hub without a damned good reason.Turns out, they have one.But Ianto has to come clean about quite a few things, and the result has his Torchwood friends concerned and his wizarding friends relieved.





	If I Could Turn Back Time

They had just finished their portion of the cleanup.  The facility had been handed off to UNIT, and finishing touches were being applied to reports. 

It was almost time.

Ianto had felt the ripple as time looped back in on itself and reintegrated.  Jack’s head came up from his report, a frown on his face as he looked around.  He’d felt it, too. 

Not long, now.

Within a quarter hour, four pops resounded through the hub.  Voices were raised and guns were drawn, but Ianto, having expected the visit, interceded.

“It’s all right,” Ianto said, stepping between the two groups with his hands held out to his coworkers in a placating gesture.  “Please, lower your weapons.”

“What the bloody hell, Tea Boy?  We have someone in the hub who shouldn’t be.  Again.  And _you_ expect us to put our guns down?”

Ianto winced at the reference to the fiasco with Lisa, but held his ground.  “Please, Owen.  These are my friends.”

“Ianto?” Jack was looking down from his office.  He slowly descended the steps.  “One of your friends is the Minister for Magic.”

“Well aware, Sir,” Ianto gave a half-smile and turned away from his team.  They were slowly lowering their weapons, since Jack seemed to know their guests.  He reached out a hand.  “Sir.”

Kingsley took his hand and shook it.  “I suppose you know why we’re here.”

“I could take an educated guess, Sir,” Ianto answered, stepping to the side and hugging Hermione.  He then hugged Harry and Ron, in turn.  “Good to see you three,” he grinned.  He had no idea what would happen, now, but he was damned glad to see his friends, nonetheless.

“What the hell is going on, Nif?” Ron asked.  Then, catching himself, “I mean, Ianto.”

“Not that I’m not honored to have the Minister for Magic and the Big Three come for a visit, but this is my house, and it is meant to be a secure facility, and you are here uninvited.  Care to read me in?” Jack asked, as patiently as he could manage, but still with a hard edge to his voice.

“Is there someplace we can talk?” Kingsley asked.

“Conference room.”

As soon as they entered the room, Hermione pulled out her wand.  The room and the table expanded, slightly.  It was disorientating to watch, but it was probably good to have the extra space.  Toshiko, Gwen, Owen, and Martha sat at the end of the table closest to the door.  Jack sat at the head of the table at the opposite end, with Ianto to his right and Kingsley to his left.  Hermione, Harry and Ron remained standing, behind the minister.

“I appreciate your forbearance, Jack,” Kingsley began.  “But we just have a few questions.  It has come to our attention that just under half an hour ago, there was a disturbance consistent with timeline tampering.”  He looked pointedly at Ianto, who gazed back, his face a perfect mask of calm.

“Sorry, can’t help you there,” Jack replied, wondering about the staring contest, and the mask that he had come to recognize as an indication that Ianto was in some sort of distress.  “Vortex Manipulator hasn’t worked in ages.”

“The energy signature is consistent with that of a time turner,” the minister said, still staring at Ianto.

Ianto elegantly arched a brow.  “The time turners were destroyed during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries,” he said blandly.

Jack began to have a very bad feeling.

“And it has occurred to us that you were present at that battle, Mr. Jones.”

It did not go unnoticed that Kingsley, in both posture and tone of voice, had shifted from old friend to Minister for Magic.  He lifted a hand and gave a sort of half-wave.

Ron shifted uncomfortably.  “Ianto, mate, we’re going to need to hold on to your wand, for the rest of this conversation.”

“What?” Jack looked confused.  Ianto, for some reason Jack had been unable to determine, did not have permission to carry his wand.

“We know you have it with you, Ianto,” Hermione said sadly.

“You’re not disarming one of my team,” Jack hissed.  He knew this was trouble of the highest order.  “You said you had questions.  As you said, I am being very forbearing, but you need to just ask your questions.”

“Jack,” Ianto reached out and placed a hand on top of Jack’s.  “It’s all right.”  He looked from Ron to Harry.  “I’m reaching for my wand, now.”

Once the wand was on the table in front of Shacklebolt, the minister looked at Ianto.  “Where did you find a time turner?”

Ianto had been debating whether to play dumb, but all it would take was for one of his friends to lose their patience and perform a quick _accio_ spell.  Well, he had known that this would happen.  He cast a glance to Owen and then nodded to himself. 

It had been worth it.

He slumped back in his chair with a sigh and muttered something that no one besides Jack, with his 51st century hearing, caught.  Jack almost groaned aloud.

“A little louder, Jones,” Kingsley said.

“I said, I may have boosted it before the battle began,” he said, grudgingly.

Ron gave a snort before covering it up.  Harry’s lips twitched.  Hermione looked torn between outrage and fond amusement.  Jack just stared at him as he focused on his hands.

“Wait!  Wait.  Wait.  Are you telling me that our Tea Boy was in a battle, and that he’s a thief?” Owen looked as though his whole worldview had been tilted on its axis.

Hermione turned on him.  “You will treat this man with respect,” she seethed, still clutching her wand from her earlier spell.  Small sparks flew from the end, showing her temper.  “He is a war hero, not a bloody ‘tea boy’!”

“Hermione,” Ianto gave a quiet groan.  “That is _so_ not true.”

Hermione looked outraged, but did not speak further.  Owen sat back in his chair, nonplussed at her words and more than a little intimidated by her anger.  And the sparks.  The sparks scared the hell out of him.  He was still getting used to the whole idea of witches and wizards being real.  But what was this about Ianto being a war hero?

In an attempt to ward off any further exploration on _that_ topic, Ianto reached up and loosened his tie, then unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.  He drew the time turner’s chain from around his neck and placed it on the table.  “Here.  Take it.  Thing’s a bloody great burden.”

Kingsley reached out and took it.  He stared at it for a moment before handing it to Hermione, who placed it in a bag that then disappeared into her robes.  He looked up at Ianto.  “What I don’t’ understand is why you didn’t use this at Canary Wharf.”

Ianto snorted derisively.  “You really think I didn’t?”

Jack went slack-jawed.  So did Ron and Harry.  Hermione simply stared.

“What did you do?” Kingsley ground out, finally showing some of his anger, frustration and disappointment.

“The fucking world ended.  What would you have had me do?” Ianto half-growled, half-shouted.  Then he took a breath to steady himself.  “That’s not hyperbole.  It ended.  It was ending.  Everyone died, including the Doctor.  It all…  The moon was crashing down, and nothing was going to be left.  So yes.  I retrieved my wand and the turner from where they’d been stashed.  And I used them.”

He closed his eyes, fighting the sensation of being pulled back into the memories of that day.  “The second time around, I freed him.  The Doctor.  And he was able to stop the Cybermen.  But the Daleks…  They lay waste to everything.  Including their Predator.”  He shivered.  “You do not want to hear the sound of every Dalek on the planet celebrating the death of their greatest enemy, and then exterminating everything in sight.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Hermione had a hand to her mouth, and tears were falling.  “You turned it again.”

Ianto gave a shaky nod.  “I went back far enough to convince Yvonne to keep the Doctor with her.  Give him the tour, so he’d be free from the beginning, maybe be able to stop both…”

“Did you _imperius_ Director Hartman?” Kingsley raised an eyebrow.  She had been one of the few muggles who had ever proved impervious to the curse.  If Jones had been successful…

Ianto looked surprised.  “Of course not,” he said, managing to sound both amused and appalled.  “I’ve never used that curse.  It was merely a matter of convincing her that the Doctor would be far more likely to let something slip in a more… casual setting.”

“And she would get to gloat,” Jack gave a crooked smile.

“And she would get to gloat,” Ianto smiled back before turning to face Kingsley, once more.  “No need for the _imperius_ curse when there’s plenty of vanity, to work with.”

Jack’s smile faded.  He knew that trick.

Ianto winced and immediately looked contrite.

“So you kept turning time until you got a result you wanted,” Kingsley said, but there was no real heat behind it.  He took note of how pale Ianto had become, and the shaking.

“You honestly think what we ended up with was the result I _wanted_?" Ianto snapped, and Kingsley flinched.  Ianto took a steadying breath.  “No.  I turned it twice, and stopped when the world stopped ending.  I knew after the second turn that I couldn’t keep doing it.  I could hardly breathe, the third time around.  Everything felt like it was getting unstable, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of that or the void opening.  Plus… my wand got broken.”

“But Ianto.  That means you went through the battle three times,” Hermione whispered.

Ianto winced again.  “I had to avoid myself, each time.  So I couldn’t help anyone, because I couldn’t risk retreading old ground.  But I found Lisa,” he said bitterly.

“Sir,” Hermione said, “There was a lot of checking and rechecking, after the Battle of Canary Wharf.  The timelines were all solid.  I don’t think…”

Kingsley nodded.  “No, we will not be seeking redress, for that.”  He looked at Ianto, who was not holding up very well under the weight of the memories they had just forced him to relive.  He was sorry, but he had to keep going.  “And you did not use it, after…”

“After Lisa…” Ianto muttered.  “Jack had me dismantle the conversion table and destroy the bodies and scrub the room, and then put the hub to rights,” he nodded absently towards the main area, outside the conference room window.

The witch and other three wizards turned to Jack as one.  He was staring down at the table, looking ashamed.

“Don’t,” Ianto whispered, hanging his head.  “It wasn’t his fault.  I…  I should have known she was gone.  I…”  Even after a year and a half, he still had difficulty dealing with the guilt and shame of what he had done.  “It was only right, that I put things to rights, to the extent I could.”

“With no magic,” Kingsley clarified.

Ianto shook his head.  “They still didn’t know.  And my wand and the turner were safely tucked away, at home.  By the time I got there, it had been more than twenty-four hours.  Too late to try.”

“Would you have tried, if you had gotten home sooner?”

Ianto shrugged.  “I could have figured out a way to get there, if I thought there was a point.  But I realized…” he shrugged again.  He couldn’t find the words to describe the despair of realizing that he had lost Lisa at Canary Wharf, not at Torchwood Three.  And while he could have tried to save Dr. Tanizaki and Annie, he had not been willing to take the chance that something worse could happen, in the attempt.

“And after the Brecon Beacons?”

Ianto shrugged.  “What would have been the use?  Wouldn’t have changed the nature of those people.  Wouldn’t have made them _not_ be cannibals.  No point to turn back time, just to avoid a beating.”

His voice had dropped all cadence, becoming monotone. 

“So other than Canary Wharf, you have not used the time turner, before tonight?”

Ianto shook his head.  “You would have known if I had, Sir.”

“Not with that rift of yours,” Kingsley replied.

“Rift didn’t keep you from finding out, tonight,” Ianto pointed out.

“So you knew we’d come, and you did it anyway?”

Ianto nodded.

“Ianto,” Jack said, his voice soft.  “What did you do?”

Ianto closed his eyes tightly, fighting tears as he shook his head.  “I had to,” he gasped out.

Jack reached out and grasped his shoulder.  “What did you have to do?”

“I had to stop you from…” he looked from Jack to Kingsley, feeling lost.

Kingsley nodded for him to continue, his eyes kind.  His anger had abandoned him as he remembered everything his young friend had endured, everything he had overcome.  That he just… kept going, after all he had been through.  That he had not used the time turner for personal gain, ever, despite his losses. 

Kingsley was a good enough Legilimens to know that everything Ianto had said so far was true.  The young man was a powerful Occlumens, but he was not even trying to hide anything.  He was an open book.  It was actually becoming a bit painful.

Ianto took a deep breath.  “Earlier tonight… the first time around, Owen was shot and killed.”  He grimaced at the gasps around the table, as well as Owen’s colorful outburst.  In a low voice, he continued.  “Jack went looking for the mate to the Resurrection Gauntlet.”  He couldn’t bring himself to call it the ‘Risen Mitten’.  It wasn’t funny, anymore.

Jack sat back in his chair, looking stunned.

“He found it.  Used it, himself.  Brought Owen back.”  He choked.  “But…  This glove was different.”  He looked at Owen, who had gone pale.  “You stayed.  You were dead.  But you stayed resurrected.  You didn’t die, again.”

“You made me a fucking zombie, Harkness?” Owen felt more sick than outraged.

“He didn’t know,” Ianto defended, his voice shaking.  “But I couldn’t…  I couldn’t let…  It was too much like…  Alive, and yet _not_ ,” Ianto’s voice was shaking with emotion.  “I just couldn’t.  So I went home and got my wand and the time turner.  And then I stepped in and…  Well.  You know the rest.”

“Your team knows, but you need to tell us,” Kingsley prodded gently.

Ianto struggled for a moment, not wanting his friends to know what he’d done.  His face screwed up in anguish, and he let out a pained sob.  “I killed him.  Professor Copley.  I shot him before he could fire the gun he was hiding.  Didn’t see it, the first time.  Didn’t wait for him to raise it, the second.”  He drew a shaking hand across his face.  “I couldn’t let it happen, again.”

Owen had torn into Ianto like never before, worse even than when they had opened the rift.  And all Ianto could do was hug him as Jack tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.  But then cleanup had taken priority, and the debriefing had been put off until later in the day.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were all looking at Ianto with sympathy, but he couldn’t raise his eyes to see.  Kingsley leaned back in his chair and swiped a hand over his face.  He sighed.  “You knew there would be consequences for using the time turner.”

Ianto nodded.  “Azkaban, I assume, Sir?”  He could have been asking if they wanted coffee, for all the emotion in his voice.

Jack flinched.  Then paled.

Kingsley’s eyes widened.  “Of course not.  We will deal with this quietly.  No charges will be levied against you.  But most likely, you will no longer be an Auror.”

Ianto nodded again, even as Harry and Ron shifted, clearly not happy with that possibility.

“He will remain on my team as liaison,” Jack cut in.  He was shocked that his actions had led to Ianto being stripped of his magical job.  That Ianto had acted, despite clearly thinking he would be sent to the wizarding prison.

“Very well,” Kingsley nodded his assent.

Ron burst out.  “But Sir – he only has another year on this tour.  If he can’t be an Auror when he returns, then what…” he was interrupted by a bitter laugh.

“C’mon, Weasley.  We all know I was never going to survive this tour.”

The room went still as death as Ron, Harry and Hermione goggled at him.  Kingsley and Jack looked stunned.  Ianto did not seem to notice.  He was muttering something to himself, in Welsh.  Gwen started crying, when she heard what he was saying.

Jack reached out again, startled by what the memories had done to Ianto’s composure and state of mind.  “Ianto, that is not a foregone conclusion,” he whispered, wrapping a hand around the back of Ianto’s neck and pressing their foreheads together.

“I have nothing left to lose, Jack,” Ianto said in a ragged whisper.  “And nothing left to give.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t know, Jack.  I don’t even know what’s real, anymore,” he confessed, his voice low and ragged.  “I pretend everything is real, just in case, but…” he drew a breath.  “But half the time I worry I’m at St. Mungo’s, and this is all just a fever dream borne of _cruciatus_ -induced madness.”

Jack released Ianto, looking startled.  Ianto was rubbing his face, trying to calm himself as Kingsley muttered, “Thanks be to Merlin.”

Ron and Hermione shared a look before disapparating.  Harry circled the table.  He leaned against the table, just to Ianto’s right and gripped his shoulder.  “It’ll be all right, mate,” he said quietly.  “Now that you remember, we can help you.  You’re going to be all right, Nif.”

 “What is he talking about?” Jack asked Kingsley quietly, fighting a panic he could hardly describe.

“I will explain,” Kingsley said, though it was clear that he had no intention of doing so, in that moment.  He was watching Ianto closely as the younger man rocked in his chair, clutching his head in both hands and pulling at the hair at his temples, clearly just trying to hold himself together.

***

**Author's Note:**

> I am abnormally excited about this fic. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Always remember: kudos and comments are like catnip! :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> **Double bonus if you have Cher singing in your head, now. :D You're welcome. *evil laugh*


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